Posted
by
timothy
on Sunday April 08, 2012 @10:02PM
from the really-big-hose dept.

MrSeb writes with ExtremeTech's account of how director (and deep sea explorer) James Cameron spent a reported $18 million converting his blockbuster movie, Titantic, to 3D. The article "looks at the primary way of managing depth in 3D films (parallax), how you add depth to a movie that was originally filmed in 2D, and some of the software (both computer and human-brain) difficulties that Cameron had to overcome in the more-than-two-year process to convert Titanic into 3D."

Exactly. 3D has failed big time, but Titanic 3D is attracting lots of people. I made a separate comment about it: Is it because it's Titanic the movie or is it that it is in 3D? Would a re-release of the original movie be a big hit?

I'd guess the 3d bit is a convenient excuse for some people to see it again.

What I want to know is, how much are they going to make on an $18m investment? I'm sure it costs more than that when you figure in promotion and such, but still, it cost $200 million the first time around and grossed $1.8 billion.

The reason is called "home video." Before the VCR came along, studios would periodically do revival showings of popular older films in theaters. But when home video made the entire Hollywood back catalog available for viewing anywhere anytime, the economic rationale for re-releasing classics in theaters disappeared.

Yeah, but titles that never made it to home video are unlikely to ever have been revived in theaters, either. Song of the South, for instance, has been suppressed because Disney is embarrassed about its racist content; it's hard to imagine that if home video suddenly disappeared Disney would ever consent to it being shown in theaters.

Hollywood companies publish the real numbers in their shareholders reports, one of which happened directly before the titanic movie was released in theatres.

It was only after the fact that they came up with the other shit. Like they always do.

If you talk to anyone, ever, who was due a cut of profits in hollywood, they'll tell you their film lost money. Yet somehow Warner, Universal, Sony etc manage to stay in business and have so much cash that they can spend upwards of 100m a year just on people to talk to people in washington.

If you look at the records, almost every single film they produce loses money. The ones that don't make a very meager profit.

3D hasn't failed, it's just succumbed to the usual Hollywood profiteering. They do it every time the technology comes around. Initially the first films are great, but before too long you end up with things that are converted to 3D to get on the bandwagon and the quality suffers. Eventually they get so bad that people are no longer willing to pay the premium.

There's also the issue of movies already being in 3D when shot properly. The human mind can do an amazing job of creating volume where there is none bas

Exactly. 3D has failed big time, but Titanic 3D is attracting lots of people. I made a separate comment about it: Is it because it's Titanic the movie or is it that it is in 3D? Would a re-release of the original movie be a big hit?

3D has not failed big time. Avatar at $1.6B is one of the most successful films of all time.

I think it's fair to point out that people were saying the same thing about color TV in the 1960's: It's a fad--who needs it.

If you adjusted the color for one station/network so that flesh tones were natural, they were yellow on other channels because there was no agreed upon standard on which to base this and each network did its own thing. Eventually, the standards were developed and each station/network adopted them, which is why, today, you can channel surf and never need to adjust it [if you even can on a modern TV set].

It took at least a decade to achieve this, perhaps longer.

The same thing happened when "colorization" technology first arrived. Originally, it was used [badly] to colorize B&W movies because someone [Ted Turner] thought that people would not watch B&W movies anymore. A particularly horrific attempt was the colorization of the [original] Edmund O'Brien version of D.O.A.

Eventually, it was realized that this was a solution in search of a problem. And the true problem to be solved by this technology was eventually discovered: restoral of faded color films. In fact, even B&W films benefit from this. Look at any recent DVD releases of classic films and you'll usually see that the entire film has been "digitally remastered".

I can assure you that there are many players in the video technology field that are placing heavy longterm investments on 3D.

Also, there are advantages to shooting a movie in 3D, even you only ever intend to release it in 2D (e.g. better control of depth of focus, etc.). Thus, 3D will be here to stay [as will shooting digitally vs film], if only for mastering/editing.

Something that was once known as "Seward's Folly" is now known as something called "Alaska"...

3D has not failed big time. Avatar at $1.6B is one of the most successful films of all time.

That includes both the 2D and S3D (not 3D, it's Stereoscopic) versions.

I did a small amount of looking, I don't see anywhere that the revenues for box office sales are broken down by which version grossed how much. Raw dollars are also not a good measure of popularity of the S3D version over the 2D version, because you're not adjusting for the increased ticket price. The numbers we need are actual ticket sales for each version, which I haven't been able to locate.

I think it's fair to point out that people were saying the same thing about color TV in the 1960's: It's a fad--who needs it.

It still remains the only movie I've ever been to the cinema to see twice (as I believe is the case for quite a number of people).

My sister-in-law worked in a movie theater the year that came out and estimates she's seen it about 28 times. I asked her if she'd like to see it again, and she agreed, provided I "clawed [her] fucking eyes out first". I took that to mean no.

Titanic works for both men and women. For women, it's pretty obviously a love story about the poor little rich girl who falls in love with a man beneath her social stature and the trials and tribulations that they go through to be together.

For men, it has explosions, breasts, and a snobs versus the slobs storyline--think "Caddyshack on the High Seas."

You left out Titanic buffs in general, which I was years before the 1997 movie came out.

Sure, its attention to historical facts and details is secondary to the melodramatic love story, but they did an incredible technical job showing the ship going down. The ship is as much a character as the others, and watching it slowly die in the most realistic depiction to date was technically fascinating while emotionally gut-wrenching, in much the same way many Star Trek fans were devastated when the original Enterprise was destroyed in The Search for Spock.

Watch it again. The vast majority of the film focuses on the interaction between Sarah Connor and Kyle Reese. Arnold's character has far less screen time (and the crappy stop-motion Terminator endoskeleton appears for about 30 seconds total).

the crappy stop-motion Terminator endoskeleton appears for about 30 seconds total

What you call crappy, I call a realistic vision of robotic terror that burned itself into my 11-year-old psyche so deep that there's a bit of me that still gets a little jolt of fear upon seeing that endoskeleton to this day.

Perhaps it's the part of me abused by seeing Wrath of the Titans recently that's talking, but how did the characters in Titanic lack depth? Even the ship's designer was more interesting than all the characters in Wrath put together. To be fair, that isn't saying much.

Just got done watching a Research Channel vid on youtube with Neil deGrasse Tyson. In it he told a story about Titanic where he talked about Cameron using a sub to check out the details of the Titanic to keep it authentic. However, with the scene near the end why the kid chooses to drown, he noticed that the night sky was not only wrong but the left side was a mirror of the right side. Thus, Tyson wrote Cameron a letter about it. Later, he met up with Cameron and decided to bring up the point, and Cameron mentioned how many billions it made and asked how much more the right sky would make him. Yet, that is not the end of the story. Years later Tyson gets a call - its some Hollywood type who says he's working with Cameron on updating Titanic and that Tyson would have a night sky for him. His next words had so much heartfelt emotion in them "YES!".

So, I guess anyone who wants to see Tyson's accurate night sky will go and see it...

I just read a bit on this - I think it was on the National Geographic website. In fairness to the company, they never said it was unsinkable. That was the media doing what the media does. OTOH, the ship's architect had specified 64 lifeboats, but that would have blocked the view in first class or something so the company went with IIRC 32. Also, some of those were along part of the ship that, unlike its predecessor the Olympic, had been walled off so the boats were actually inaccessible. I think the ar

I'm somewhat confused by the success of the 3D "remake" of Titanic, considering that 3D has been a massive failure so far. The market (not counting a tiny niche of enthusiasts) has rejected 3D at the movies, on game consoles, on TVs, etc. Sales started out decently, but took a major hit, and there just doesn't seem to be any interest in 3D.

So when 3D Titanic is such a success (at least for now), is that because people are just thrilled to see a "classic" again at the movies, or is the 3D genuinely sparking people's interest? Is it the 3D that is causing people to buy tickets? And if so, why did just about everything else 3D fail so far?

By the way, I watched Avatar in 3D. I hated it. It didn't add anything to the movie. If anything, it detracted from it. The article mentions Avatar as a learning experience for Titanic 3D, which makes me wonder even more. Did they fix Titanic 3D so that it actually adds something this time? Is that why it's such a hit?

While I don't necessarily disagree with you, people said the same thing about color. Color film (vs B&W) is a more "real-life" experience. Evidence suggests that "real-life" experience has a lot to do with movies - from color, to picture quality, to positional audio. 3D is a (if not the) next logical step.

To be honest, I thought Avatar was a masterfully executed film, if a bit cliched. It's certainly cohesive and "all-encompassing" in a way that few movies are. It's a shame the plot was so pedestrian. The 3D made the movie impressive, but since it seemed like a tech demo more than a proper flick, it came at the expense of me wanting to watch it again in 2D. By comparison, black&white never stopped me watching Casablanca, or Citizen Kane.

But there's all sorts of movies that are a lot of fun, if "safe". I can't exactly call them bad, in the same way that I can't call any of those Sundance films bad despite the fact that they're so boring. It's just a different kind of movie.

Did color really add anything to movies, though? It may seem that way to us, but I get the impression that there is a bit of psychological feedback going on between what we see in movies and what we expect in movies.

In fact, there seems to have been a lasting effect from the original black and white movie footage of the the 1900-1950 era in that often directors will present footage set in that era in black and white. Sometimes it just feels wrong when it's in color. (it's almost like if you were to time

If it were real 3D, sure then everyone would be all about it. If you could get a real 3D display, they'd be the Next Big Thing(tm). However the "3D with glasses" shit we have now is nothing new. It has been tried at least twice before by my count and failed badly both times. There are multiple problems:

1) You have to wear glasses. If you don't it is an unwatchable mess. So you can't just have something in 3D playing on your TV and have people wander in and out. Also all the glasses have downsides. The polarized ones lose the 3D effect if you tilt your head too much, the shutter ones flicker a bit and require power, the analgyphic ones fuck with colour.

2) For the polarized and shutter glasses, they kill brightness and hurt contrast ratio. They are like wearing ND4 or worse filters on your eyes. So you take a nice bright digital projection screen, put those on and it is kinda dim. Only thing to be done is to just overpower it with even more brightness but that isn't always feasible.

3) There is no parallax. As you shift your view and position, everything stays static, because they only provide image separation. They don't provide parallax so shit looks wrong.

4) There is no focus. Everything is in the same plane of focus. This only works if everything is at or beyond your infinity focal point. If anything gets closer, your brain gets confused.

It is a half-assed 3D implementation, as I said tried before (Disneyland had a 3D Micheal Jackson flick years ago as an example). It isn't a real 3D display. You show me the display that can get all the aspects of 3D, separation, parallax, and focus, and can do so without wearing something, you've got the next big thing in displays. Until then, it isn't going anywhere.

My jaw dropped on the first scene (you flyover the jungle) and my mind made the effect so realistic I had persistent motion sickness from about 15mins in. Every tracking shot, I felt like I was moving. Every new camera angle I felt like I teleported.

Then again, I'm a somewhat hedonistic yogic. I convinced my brain to perceive it as real.

titanic 3d will be very successful, as it was 15 years ago in 2d. there is an entirely new generation of movie goers that have not seen one of most successful movies ever. being a historic piece, the story, plot and setting cannot be dated, so it will appeal to people today just as much as it did 15 years ago.

for those who have seen it before (many having done so multiple times), it is a chance to see it again in on the big screen, an experie

I'm pretty sure that the interest in reviving the Titanic movie has more to do with the 100th anniversary of the original sinking of the Titanic on April 15th, 1912. It's like free advertising for everything Titanic-related. And, if there's any movie that squeezed more money from the public the first release, I can't think of it.

* large up-front per-person costs: 100Hz TV and $100 goggles for everyone.* the movies are also more expensive* differing technologies of differing quality and compatibility

In essence, it really is just an enthusiast and "1%" market, like the original LaserDisk. I hear rumors that the latest 3D tech isn't even being adopted by the porn industry to any significant degree, either.

For my part, the only "3D" technologies I've seen which are actually worth persuing are NVidia'

I'd like to see a Titanic themed ride at Universal or whatever. Throw in some 1910s decorations. Some classical music. And then have it like a roller coaster or tower of terror but in sub zero degrees at one of the drops to simulate the ship plunging into the ocean.

I'd like to see a Titanic themed ride at Universal or whatever. Throw in some 1910s decorations. Some classical music. And then have it like a roller coaster or tower of terror but in sub zero degrees at one of the drops to simulate the ship plunging into the ocean.

Yes, yes. Let's take an incident that killed 1,500 people in the frozen waters of the North Atlantic and make it a ride. It's bad enough that Cameron turned the tragedy into some bogus "love story" - that scene in the water with Winslet and DiCaprio makes me want to puke - then the woman ditches the necklace into the open water with an "oops". Call me jaded, but I think the movie is a bigger tragedy than the actual event.

Yes, yes. Let's take an incident that killed 1,500 people in the frozen waters of the North Atlantic and make it a ride. It's bad enough that Cameron turned the tragedy into some bogus "love story" - that scene in the water with Winslet and DiCaprio makes me want to puke - then the woman ditches the necklace into the open water with an "oops". Call me jaded, but I think the movie is a bigger tragedy than the actual event.

I'm guessing you're not going to like the "Springtime For Hitler" Experience either. Sort of like "Pirates of the Carribean", only with Nazis.

I'd like to see a Titanic themed ride at Universal or whatever. Throw in some 1910s decorations. Some classical music. And then have it like a roller coaster or tower of terror but in sub zero degrees at one of the drops to simulate the ship plunging into the ocean.

I don't know how many people have seen a 2D movie converted to 3D. I saw Lion King 3D and it seemed flat compared to other films original made in 3D. It might be my imagination, but the Christmas Carol seemed much more natural.

My thought, then, is if Titanic 3D is going to turn people of to converted 3D movies. This may the first movie of this type many will see, and there is a huge if misguided following for Titanic. Expectations are high and I don't think the technology is up to the expectations. O

That's the thing. It didn't seem flat. Flat would be if a single object was 2d, but just sort of on its own plane. But, even on a single object, you could see that that the "closer" parts stood out more than the "further" parts. This is true of the actors' facial features as well as intricate objects (like the metal diving-crate containing a submersible robot).

It's still not my cup of tea, but in the same way I don't like new movies filmed in 3d with two cameras. The classic problems still exist. Eye fa

They spent 18 million reworking it to 3D. I haven't seen a lot of publicity so it's unlikely they spent more than 18 million for prints and advertizing. They made 17.4 million on the opening weekend just on domestic box office. It almost certainly will make 50 million domestic and could hit a 100 million although somewhere in the middle is more likely. Foreign is less for 3D but it sold strong overseas so it could match the US take. Break the numbers down and for a 36 million investment they get around 50 to 100 million back after you factor out the theater take. They either double or triple their money and that doesn't factor in a spike in DVD and Blu-rays since they are likely to also release a special addition. The studios are in it to make money not films. Why risk 18 million on a film that could bomb when they make 30 to 70 million in profit by recycling a hit? Disney survived through many bleak years after Walt died re-releasing old animated films.

OK, it drew a huge audience because it managed to be both a chick film and (at the time) a guy film with all of the special effects and geeky historical research. But the script and acting were mediocre, and the song that won the Grammy was weak.

The Poseiden Adventure [youtube.com] from the '70s was a much better film with a similar subject, on a much smaller budget.

Having seen them both (and a couple thousand other films, as my cred.), no, Poseidon Adventure was not a better film than Titanic. It was staid 70's filmmaking with the cliche "group of survivors encounters various obstacles and die off one by one" ending. Go back a couple of decades and watch The Great Escape or Stalag 17. They do it way better than Poseidon.